Investigating the murder of the young Hanzel (Yul Servo) shot dead one winter night, detective Juan Mijares (Joel Torres) plumbs the depths of the Filipino gangs of Jersey city who trade in crystal meth. Talking to the boy’s mother, remarried to an American; to his grandfather, an ex-soldier, bigger questions emerge: what dark history has pushed so many Filipinos to migrate this wintry land? What path are their children on?Shot at the turn of the millennium by a fearless Lav Diaz (Norte, The End of History), Batang West Side is a timeless epic about Filipino immigration over generations. Diaz’s sole film shot in the United States, it does not shy away from the power of cumulative answers, revealed intricately over the course of an epic runtime and Dostoyevskian themes that would become hallmarks in the oeuvre of the Filipino master.